So I am working on a platformer game which includes music with beat detection. I am currently using a simple if the energy that is stored in the history buffer is smaller then the current energy there is a beat. The problem with this is that ofcourse if you use songs like rock songs where you have a pretty steady amplitude this isn't going to work.

So I looked further and found algorithms splitting the sound into multiple bands using FFT. I then found this : http://en.literateprograms.org/Cooley-Tukey_FFT_algorithm_(C)

The only problem I'm having is that I am quite new to audio and I have no idea how to use that to split the signal up into multiple signals.

So my question is :

How do you use a FFT to split a signal into multiple bands ?

Also for the guys interested, this is my algorithm in c# :

// C = threshold, N = size of history buffer / 1024
    public void PlaceBeatMarkers(float C, int N)
    {
        List<float> instantEnergyList = new List<float>();
        short[] samples = soundData.Samples;

        float timePerSample = 1 / (float)soundData.SampleRate;
        int sampleIndex = 0;
        int nextSamples = 1024;

        // Calculate instant energy for every 1024 samples.
        while (sampleIndex + nextSamples < samples.Length)
        {

            float instantEnergy = 0;

            for (int i = 0; i < nextSamples; i++)
            {
                instantEnergy += Math.Abs((float)samples[sampleIndex + i]);
            }

            instantEnergy /= nextSamples;
            instantEnergyList.Add(instantEnergy);

            if(sampleIndex + nextSamples >= samples.Length)
                nextSamples = samples.Length - sampleIndex - 1;

            sampleIndex += nextSamples;
        }


        int index = N;
        int numInBuffer = index;
        float historyBuffer = 0;

        //Fill the history buffer with n * instant energy
        for (int i = 0; i < index; i++)
        {
            historyBuffer += instantEnergyList[i];
        }

        // If instantEnergy / samples in buffer < instantEnergy for the next sample then add beatmarker.
        while (index + 1 < instantEnergyList.Count)
        {
            if(instantEnergyList[index + 1] > (historyBuffer / numInBuffer) * C)
                beatMarkers.Add((index + 1) * 1024 * timePerSample); 
            historyBuffer -= instantEnergyList[index - numInBuffer];
            historyBuffer += instantEnergyList[index + 1];
            index++;
        }
    }